““He is a lesser figure than X”—how it pleases an Englishman to say that! Never suspecting what basement that would put him in, a wood louse.”

J. Agee, trans. (1989), p. 74
Das Geheimherz der Uhr [The Secret Heart of the Clock] (1987)

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Elias Canetti43

Bulgarian-born Swiss and British jewish modernist novelist,… 1905–1994

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““He is a lesser figure than X”—how it pleases an Englishman to say that! Never suspecting what basement that would put him in, a wood louse.”

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